This blogpost is my 100th blog. Celebrating my 100th blog with my new Surface Go (4 GB model). Actually this blog was written using Surface Go.

Release Date in Singapore

28th Aug 2018

Shipped Date

31 Aug 2018

Price SGD (including type cover)

S$ 725.10 (this is 10% student price)

Unboxing the Surface Go

Below are the items included in the Box

Surface Go device

Power Supply

Starter Guide

Warranty details

Surface Go devices are mainly targeted for Students to make it easy to carry, light weight and productive during the classes. The Windows 10 configuration has optimized settings specific to education sector. There is a very good article around it here

The Surface Go has below ports

1 x USB-C

3.5 mm headphone jack

1 x Surface Connect port

Surface Type Cover port

microSDXC card reader

Full Tech Spec – My Surface Go

Software

Windows 10 Home (Out of S mode)

Microsoft Office 365 Home – My Live subscription

Dimensions

9.65″ x 6.90″ x 0.33″ (245 mm x 175 mm x 8.30 mm)

Weight

Starting at 1.15 lbs (522 g), not including Type Cover

Storage

eMMC drive: 64GB

Display

Screen: 10″ PixelSense™ Display

Resolution: 1800 x 1200 (217 PPI) resolution

Aspect ratio: 3:2

Contrast ratio: 1500:1

Touch: 10-point multi-touch

Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3

Battery life

Up to 9 hours of battery life – I am yet to test that

Processor

Intel® Pentium® Gold Processor 4415Y

Security

TPM 2.0 for enterprise security

Enterprise-grade protection with Windows Hello face sign-in

Memory

4GB

Wireless

Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac compatible

Bluetooth Wireless 4.1 technology

Connections

1 x USB-C

3.5 mm headphone jack

1 x Surface Connect port

Surface Type Cover port

microSDXC card reader

Cameras, video, and audio

Windows Hello face authentication camera (front-facing)

5.0MP front-facing camera with 1080p Skype HD video

8.0MP rear-facing autofocus camera with 1080p HD video

Single microphone

2W stereo speakers with Dolby® Audio™ Premium

Graphics

Intel® HD Graphics 615

Exterior

Casing: Magnesium

Color: Silver

Physical buttons: Volume, Power

Sensors

Ambient light sensor

Accelerometer

Gyroscope

Magnetometer

My Reviews

First Look

The device looks super cute with the slim down in size. You can visualize the sizes between devices in the below picture. The device has smooth curved edges compared to Surface Pro. Compared to other tablets in market this one is slightly thicker.

Pros:

Smaller and Handy (245 mm x 175 mm x 8.30 mm)

Light weight (522 g)

Fit easily to your hand bag and carry

Comes with built in stand, easy to work

Cons:

Slightly thicker than usual tablets.

Backward Compatibility & Features

Once I unbox the Go device I try to plug in to my Surface Dock, you guess what it works like charm. Any USB devices connected to Dock works too. I even tried to charge using the Surface Pro charger and it works. The Type C port is easy to extend multiple monitors. Surface Pen and the Surface Dial also works without any glitch. It has a Micro SD slot at the back hidden behind stand like in Surface Pro.

Pros:

Works with Surface Dock

Works with Surface Pen, Dial and Surface Pro charger.

Micro SD slot available

Type C port for Extension

Cons:

No USB port , you need to buy Type C to USB in case you want to connect any external devices.

CPU Performance

To identify the performance, I used 2 benchmark tools GeekBench 4 and the NovaBench. Both tools have their own benchmark scores for CPU, Memory and GPU. Below is the screenshot of the tool results.

The benchmark score shows Surface Go performs on much better than $500 USD priced Laptop models. It scores better in GPU and graphics.

Using Novabench Tool for getting the benchmark of performance. The Novabench tool will have its own score to come up with the benchmark.